Dear Prospective Students,
Welcome to the Langston Lab at the University of Tennessee! As you may know,
Knoxville hosts the flagship campus in the University of Tennessee system. Exemplary
teaching and world-class research are our missions. My graduates have taken jobs at a
wide variety of institutions. Some have assumed faculty positions in academia, including
the University of Kansas, the University of North Carolina and the University of
Washington. Others have chosen careers in national laboratories, including the National
Institute for Computational Sciences and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Still others have
assumed technical/management roles in industry, including DuPont, Qualcomm and LSI
Logic (now Avago Technologies). I’m always on the lookout for bright, eager students.
Please keep reading to determine whether this may be the right sort of place for you.
My students and I work as a team on algorithm design and program synthesis, efficient
parameterized techniques, and highly efficient implementations. We collaborate with
domain scientists in a variety of application areas, most of which are related in one way
or another to the health sciences. Details about current and recent research projects are
available elsewhere on my webpage.
Here’s a little checklist for your convenience. You might be interested in my research
program if you:
 enjoy the design and analysis of algorithms,
 are not afraid of a little graph theory and combinatorics,
 want to learn about high performance computing,
 like to be on the cutting edge of novel algorithmic and mathematical concepts,
 know or are willing to learn a few applied statistical tools,
 embrace the challenge of working on real problems with real data, and
 enjoy meeting new people and studying problems in widely varying disciplines.
I am fiercely supportive of students who are ethical, hardworking, loyal and reliable. In
reciprocation, I expect students to show discipline and initiative, and to be good team
players. If you have these interests, skills and traits, then it’s likely that you will thrive here.
I hope you will consider the University of Tennessee. But wherever you go, I wish you
every success in your academic career.
Michael A. Langston
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The University of Tennessee